“Have you ever used it?” Moses decided this was not the moment to bring up his opposition to all guns; he believed the Second Amendment had been parsed in such a twisted way to misinterpret its meaning.
“Used … as in useful. Never shot anyone. I’ve had dozens of spurious threats and a few serious ones. People come up to me all the time. Most are cool, but some are belligerent. They want to fight because they think I’ve fucked their wife. Or because I won’t fuck them. Or they caught their girlfriend getting off to a photo of me. Or I’ve stolen their songs. One guy stalked me because he said he was the true Son of God and I was the Antichrist. You wouldn’t believe this shit. You just wouldn’t.” Alchemy’s accent struck Moses as that rare mix of American everywhere and nowhereness that sounded as if it were created for someone speaking Esperanto. No matter the angst or impatience of his words, and here Moses felt they differed, the melody of his voice possessed the tranquil quality of a Bach sonata.
“Or they want your bone marrow.”
“That I can give. Desiree sensed you have good juju. Me, too.” With those two words Alchemy assured Moses that he believed him.
“Thanks.”
Alchemy’s tone lightened. “Can I drive?”
Moses hesitated. “It’s rented and—”
“I got insurance policies and lawyers you wouldn’t believe exist. I’ve been sued by someone who claimed I copped his wallet at an Insatiables concert. I testified at a trial ’cause two brothers swore I recorded secret messages in ‘Papa’s Gun’ for them to kill their father. You know the song?”
“Sorry, no. Not that one.”
“Good. I like that. Anyway, fucking two-legged leeches make them all go away but they bleed me. Me driving someone else’s car? Popsicle money.”
Moses, overwrought and achy, didn’t want to drive anyway, so he gave him the keys. “I thought we’d stop in Santa Fe for the night and then fly to L.A. My doctor’s there.”
“Have you told anyone?” Alchemy tossed his bag and guitar in the trunk, took out the pistol, placed it under the front seat, and got in the car. He adjusted the seat. He was about six one, long-legged, and lean to Moses’s five nine and, before the onset of his illness, stocky build.
“Just my wife. And my mom. Geez, well, the woman I call my mom, not my biological mother. This is going to get confusing.” He laughed nervously. “She’s the one who told me about your — our — mother.”
“Make sure, for your sake, they keep it to themselves,” Alchemy warned. “I prefer we drive. We can stop in Jerome, in Arizona, for the night. Best for you to remain unknown for now or your life will be hell.”
“How so?” Moses asked, naïvely curious.
“The princes of the paparazzi.”
“I’m beginning to see.”
Alchemy replied, “You. Have. No. Fucking. Idea.”
As soon as they got close to Santa Fe, Alchemy asked to use Moses’s cell. His own was in New York or L.A. or any of a number bedrooms. Moses dialed for Alchemy, who talked as he drove.
“Trudy, I’m coming through in about six, seven hours. Staying one night.” He hung up and talked to Moses. “She’s an old friend. Did some of the first pics of the Insatiables. They paid for the down payment on her place. Now she teaches yoga and does nature photography.”
“You mind if I ask how it went up there? I always wondered about that much isolation, if I could do it. I think so. Maybe ten percent of the time, because I want to keep that hope, I believe in God or an afterlife. I want to believe but …”
In the previous decade Alchemy generously shared his controversial opinions on politics, sex, drugs, and scores of arcane subjects in hundreds of interviews. When the Insatiables released The Multiple Coming, he didn’t dodge provocative discussions about God or religion. He was careful never to reveal his personal beliefs (or lack thereof) and explained that the entire album consisted of different characters’ relationships to faith.
Moses continued, “I’m thinking, if I survive this, I might try something like that.”
“Maybe you should. Meditation is pretty addictive when you get into it. I got going on both dysphoric and euphoric hallucinations. I thought I had weird sleep patterns before, but this place messes you up on purpose, three hours here, three hours there. My brain got so disoriented that my nightmares were happening when I was awake and screwing with my daytime reality …”
Moses wanted to interrupt and ask about his nightmares. He thought about his own daymares. But Alchemy seemed to be on a talking jag.
“Desiree advised me to lower my adrenaline levels. I’m an action junkie. Have this need to get off on crowds and attention. It was hard to withdraw from phones and e-mails. Ended up cathartic. I’d do it all again, except …” He shook his head and exhaled a loud breath. “No sex. You’re not supposed to, um, pleasure yourself. I was walking around with a permanent stiffy. I gave up. Haven’t jacked off that much since I lost my cherry when I was a kid in Berlin.” Alchemy paused and took both hands off the wheel, held them aloft and strummed an air guitar, gave a childlike “Woo — woo.” He sang the Country Joe song, “And it’s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates … Whoopee! we’re all gonna die …,” as the car lurched perilously close to the edge of the road. Moses glanced down at what would be a thousand-foot drop, clamped his hand on the door handle, and clenched his jaw. Alchemy finished singing, retook the steering wheel, and jammed his foot against the accelerator. “Nathaniel, my mom’s guy, used to sing me that song when I was a pup-star. Had no idea what it was about but it stuck in my head. Mose, it’s going to be okay. I promise.” Moses was only half listening, thinking that if Alchemy kept driving like a drunken Evel Knievel, any marrow transfusion would become moot. “I’m jet-streaming nonstop. I don’t like it. I prefer to think before I talk. Not like Salome, who, you’ll see, you never know if she’s just channeling her DNA or is in one of her ‘Blue Savant’ periods, that’s what she calls it. Ruggles got other names for it. You meet Ruggles?” Moses nodded. “You have to beware, sometimes you think she’s out of it but she’s just playing you. Now, Ambitious, you’ll have to meet Ambitious, there’s one cantankerous motherfucker who talks or punches before he thinks. If you call what he does thinking. He’s PO’d at me now.
“Shit, though, almost six weeks of being a mute. Of nodding or shaking my head. I’ve have my silent periods but — phew. Mind?” Alchemy pointed with his right elbow to some bottles of water in the backseat of the car. Moses handed him one. “Thanks.” Alchemy finished an entire bottle, then another. “So, am I what you were expecting?”